A deep inherent conflict

Back in the day when Noam Chomsky was a linguist, not a political commentator, he postulated that language had a deep structure and a surface structure.  I won't delve into linguistics, but I do find the distinction useful.  In my on-going attempt to comprehend the state of our politics, particularly the state of conservative politics, I do think there are a couple of "deep structures" that explain why and how people can be induced to act against their own interests.   One such "deep structure" is religion and a "faith-based" world view.  I have touched on it a number of times elsewhere, but the deep identification of the GOP with the evangelical religious movements has changed both.  The republican orthodoxy is no longer a rational response to the observable world, as such, but the tenants of faith and deviation is no longer disagreement, but apostasy.   I have touched on this in a number of previous posts, but there is another aspect of evangelicalism that deserves mention -- its anti-imperialism.   Central to the christian deep structure is resistance to and ultimately victimization by the imperial power of Rome.  It was not an active, but a passive victimization.  A government closer to home carried out the crucifixion, but the magisterial indifference of Rome gave their permission.  There is nuance to the story, of course, but my point is simple.  Implicit throughout the GOP orthodoxy is a sense of resistance to and victimization by government.

It is interesting, for example, that the GOP now has hegemony over the government of the US.  For the most part, it controls all three branches of government -- all of congress, the Supreme Court, and the Executive.  It does not yet control the press, though it does control the one outlet for the party faithful, Fox News, and so it is not surprising that Trump and Fox News continue to bemoan his victimization by other "fake" news outlets.  More surprising are the continued attacks on the government itself, not just the minority dissenters in congress, but the CIA and other branches of the executive itself.  A recent article by Taub and Fisher in the Times strikes me as interesting, and something I had not considered before.  It suggests "Fears of a 'Deep State' in America" -- that is to say, "shadowy networks within government bureaucracies, often referred to as 'deep states,' [who] undermine and coerce elected governments."   To get a sense of this, consider for a moment what it means when the president publicly disparages his principle intelligence agency.  On the one hand, for his base, it's simply red meat for the anti-government bias, and it surprises them not one whit that the CIA is victimizing their elected messiah.  On the other hand, for the employees and government servants of the CIA, it is at best discouraging, at worst infuriating.  It isn't surprising that some employees might engage in passively aggressive behavior, doing the absolute minimum required to get by.  It isn't surprising either that a few employees might feel betrayed, and engage in more actively aggressive behavior, leaking damaging or embarrassing information to the press, and that is what we're seeing. If reported, the leaks go a long way toward entrenching the conflict between the president and the press, not to mention the agency leaking the information, and a potentially vicious spiral could ensure.   As the Times notes, we are not necessarily talking a "shadowy conspiracy," but rather "a political conflict between a nation’s leader and its governing institutions." 

I am suggesting, of course, that there is a deep inherent contradiction within the GOP.  It cannot be both the governing party and the party victimized by and morally outraged at government.  Trump's assertion that the party is a "well oiled machine," like his assertion that he won by the most electoral college votes since Reagan, or his assertion that his inaugural crowd was large than Obama's, is contradicted by obvious evidence.  He has lost his national security advisor, Flynn, and the proposed replacement, Harwood, has refused the job.  The Times reports that Harwood "cited family and financial considerations for refusing the national security job, but privately he was reported to be worried about the effect of a mercurial president on national security decision making."  It may be true, of course, but even I have used "family considerations" as a reason for refusing a job I didn't want.  Along with organized resistance from within government, a far more likely consequence of  Trump's toxic continuation of an insurgency against the very thing he is empowered to lead will be  "an exodus of talent from the broader government.  They claim "scientists, lawyers and policy specialists at the Environmental Protection Agency, for instance, are openly disheartened at the prospect of working for Scott Pruitt, whose nomination as the agency’s new boss was approved by the Senate on Friday."  Then too, although he is completely unclear on what is messy in the mess he inherited, even if we do credit his inherited mess, we can nevertheless echo Augusta Caesar -- "I am surprised the King did not realize that a far harder task than winning an empire is putting it into order once you have won it."  

His so-called base elected a messianic figure, who "alone could solve," and they did so because they felt (with some justification) that the government was corrupt, self-indulgent, and for the most part indifferent to their plight.  The actual messiah, of course, made few temporal promises, and rightly so, because all things considered, there was little that one man, no matter how divinely endowed, could do against the Roman Empire.  The actual messiah made eternal promises, everlasting life after death as a reward not just for their enduring faith, but for "rendering unto Caesar" and enduring under crushing weight of Rome.  Trump is no temporal messiah, and as so many of us have long said, it's questionable whether he is even a competent manager.   I do sincerely doubt that Trump has the inherent capacity to admit his flailing and failing government.  Not once, during the campaign or after have I slightest hint of mea culpa, and his continued attacks on the press for reporting on his flailing government, as if the reportage not his failing leadership were the sin, suggest once again that his narcissism will prevent him from doing right, even by himself.  Neither is Trump a spiritual messiah, and one might hope that the evangelicals who helped propel him to office, in part because he "opposed" abortion, might eventually realize that they helped elect the moral antithesis of christ, the anti-christ.  I have made this assertion before, and again I am not making an apocalyptic prediction, merely pointing out what should be obvious to most -- his pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.  I could go down the list and point to examples of each, not just the mundane failings we are all share, but egregious over-the-top examples of each.  Perhaps most of all sloth.  His three a.m. tweets notwithstanding, he is intellectually and ethically lazy in the extreme, making little apparent effort at actual understanding, relying instead on the immediacy of his superior (or so he believes) off-the-cuff insight.

So it goes.  There is an advantage to chaos for a leading class unconcerned about those they lead -- look at Venezuela.  It is the pretext of pretexts for an oppressive kleptocracy to become even more oppressive as they attempt to restore order.  Of course our democracy is too well entrenched for Venezuela to happen here, and I have already said too often that he demonstrates the dictatorial tendencies of a "strict father."  When I say that I am thinking of George Lakoff's book, and yes I am not thinking of an elephant.  The GOP has long been laying the ground for Trump, and while some (too few) republicans with moral and ethical courage are challenging him -- don't think of John McCain -- he nevertheless represents the GOP archetype writ large.  It shouldn't surprise anyone that he has returned to the sort of rally that served him so well during the campaign.  As the Post reports, "for 45 minutes, Trump basked in the glow of the love of those who still believe in him and who interrupted him with adoring applause nearly 100 times. He reiterated his campaign promises, bragged about things he has already done, blamed Obama for leaving him with 'a mess like you wouldn’t believe,' denounced the 'fake news' media, pulled a fan onto the stage, referenced a terrorist attack in Sweden the night before that didn’t happen, and compared himself to Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln." All of which point to a man who feels trapped and isolated in his new role.  As the Post reports it, "he couldn’t hear the chants from hundreds of protesters stationed across the street who accused him of being a hateful dictator and Russia’s puppet, among other things."  He does not really want to be the the man in charge.  Like those now chanting in protest of him, he wants to be the man victimized by and railing against the men in charge, especially the ever-present figure of Obama, darkness personified.  We have elected a man who is not only moral and ethical equivalent of the anti-christ, but a man lacking imagination.  I believe he sincerely wants to be the leader of a unified America, but the only unity he can imagine, or tolerate, is an America unified in its fear and adoration of him.  End of story.